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Since photos of Baby Archie have been few and far between, we've been dying to know if he looks more like Meghan Markle or Prince Harry. And now, we have our answer -- well, partially, anyway. Reportedly, Archie already has red hair, so it sounds like he may be following in his dad's ginger footsteps.
CHICAGO — Accused sex trafficker R. Kelly was a no-show in court Thursday after he “refused transport” from his federal jail cell to state court, prosecutors said.
A routine pretrial hearing, updating a judge on evidence and bail issues, went on without him, but Cook County Judge Lawrence Flood wanted to know why Kelly didn't make it court.
“The defendant was to be brought to court today. That was all worked out. The sheriffs were going to be bringing him over,” said Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Jennifer Gonzalez said.
“As I understand it, he refused transport and so that is why the defendant is not before your honor today,” Gonzales said.
Defense lawyer Steve Greenberg said that’s “not 100-percent true” but declined to fully explain why his client didn’t make out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago.
“I don’t want to discuss matters that I discussed with the U.S. Marshals Service in open court,” Greenberg said. “Suffice it to say, the Marshal Service says that moving Mr. Kelly is a large undertaking.”
Kelly is facing federal sex-abuse charges in Illinois and New York, where he's accused of moving victims across state lines. He has pleaded not guilty to federal charges. He faces similar state court charges in Cook County, Illinois, and Hennepin County, Minnesota. He has not yet had the opportunity to enter a plea in that case.
Kelly has been the subject of sexual abuse allegations for almost two decades, some of them alleging acts as far back as 1998. He has vigorously denied the allegations.
The singer's next court date in Chicago state case is Sept. 17 and Judge Flood reminded both sides: "We'll have Mr. Kelly here then."
Samira Puskar reported from Chicago and David K. Li from New York.
This Thursday through Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock festival, famously billed as “Three Days of Peace and Music.” It might be more accurately described as four days of mud and myth-making, although the latter has stretched on for decades.
For an event described as an Aquarian exposition, its origins were remarkably mercenary. Two men, one a pharmaceutical heir, placed an ad in The New York Times: “Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions.” They eventually partnered with a record company executive and the promoter of the relatively small Miami Pop Festival. When plans for a music studio in Woodstock, New York, went awry, the quartet settled on the idea of an art and music festival.
The promoters had difficulty securing a site, because Woodstock wanted nothing to do with them. They leased an industrial site in Wallkill. The city council passed laws effectively banning the concert in July 1969, believing the promoters had not adequately planned the sanitation and logistics for the 50,000 promoters represented would attend. They were definitely inadequate for the more than 150,000 advance tickets already sold.
A deal to relocate in Saugerties fell through before dairy farmer Max Yasgur offered land in Bethel for the festival. Yasgur was also given the 50,000 attendance estimate. Contrary to the legend, the concert was not on Yasgur’s dairy farm itself, but on alfalfa fields that had been fertilized with manure.
The misrepresentations regarding tickets sales and the last-minute scrambling for a location meant that the fencing and on-site ticket booths were quickly overwhelmed by the nearly 500,000 people who ultimately showed up. The promoters were forced to declare the event a free concert, which only attracted more hippies. “Overwhelmed” would become a theme for Woodstock, well beyond the 10-mile-long traffic jam on the New York Thruway, exits on which were shut down to deter further waves of concertgoers.
Established food vendors wanted nothing to do with Woodstock, so the promoters hired an inexperienced group called “Food For Love.” As their supplies ran out, they naturally increased prices, which resulted in angry mobs burning down two concession stands. The “Hog Farm Collective” hired for security and support services stepped in with emergency supplies of brown rice, vegetables, and granola.
The worst example, however, was the sanitation that had Wallkill so concerned. There were only 600 toilets on site, meaning there were as few as one for every 833 attendees. People might have to wait an hour to use a toilet; many chose not to wait, enriching the pre-existing manure in the process. Moreover, the toilets themselves became overwhelmed, polluting the air and earth alike.
The awful sanitary conditions were aggravated by the weather. There was rain throughout Friday night, tapering to a drizzle until Saturday afternoon, more rain Saturday night, and a torrential downpour on Sunday afternoon. As one attendee put it, “It was a quagmire. It sucked your shoes off. It was not only mud, but cow manure and it was so dark it looked like chocolate syrup.”
Efforts to deal with the fetid muck led to one of the two deaths at Woodstock. The mud was inches deep, as “[s]odden sleeping bags were churned up with cellophane, cigarette butts and discarded clothes. Standing rainwater was steaming skyward, blanketing thousands of sleeping kids with an eerie fog.” Raymond Mizsak, 17, was protecting himself from the rain in his sleeping bag when a water-tank trailer tasked with hauling away sewage rolled over him on Saturday morning.
Richard Bieler, an 18-year-old Marine bound for Vietnam, also died at Woodstock. His death is commonly reported as a drug overdose, but he may have died from side effects of Thorazine administered to combat an overdose. It seems possible, given that medical services were as overwhelmed as any of the other vendors. Medical providers and volunteers treated at least 3,000 patients at the festival, approximately 250 of whom were airlifted from the concert.
Concert lighting designer Chip Monck famously delivered a stage announcement warning “the brown acid that is circulating around us isn’t too good. It is suggested that you stay away from that. Of course it’s your own trip. So be my guest, but please be advised that there is a warning on that one, okay?” A local doctor reported 797 “bad trips.” (In fairness, this was fewer than the 938 cut feet treated.)
Two of those involuntarily dosed with LSD were The Who’s Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, both of whom have had bad things to say about Woodstock over the ensuing decades. It is small wonder Townshend literally kicked radical activist Abbie Hoffman off the stage during their set (Hoffman was also on LSD, albeit voluntarily).
Other musicians generally shared harsh assessments of the event. Neil Young, who appeared with the newly formed Crosby, Stills & Nash, once said “Woodstock was a bullsh-t gig. A piece of sh-t. We played f-ckin’ awful.”
The Grateful Dead received electrical shocks during their rainy set; guitarist Bob Weir has spoken of trying to live it down, while drummer Mickey Hart claimed it was “the worst we ever played.” Creedence Clearwater Revival followed the Dead after midnight. John Fogerty looked out from the stage to see something “like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud.” Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick succinctly described Woodstock as “a bunch of stupid slobs in the mud.”
Townshend’s assessment was, if anything, more devastating: “All these hippies wandering about thinking the world was going to be different from that day on. As a cynical English –ssh-le, I walked through it all and felt like spitting on the lot of them, trying to make them realize that nothing had changed and nothing was going to change. Not only that, what they thought was an alternative society was basically a field full of six-foot-deep mud laced with LSD. If that was the world they wanted to live in, then f— the lot of them.”
Townshend captures the larger sense in which Woodstock was a mass hallucination experienced well beyond Yasgur’s farm. It was a weekend trip away from Vietnam, urban riots, and campus unrest, all of which remained when the amplifiers were unplugged and the mountains of trash had to be cleared.
Although it was not the first large music festival, Woodstock helped sound what Cameron Crowe would call the “death rattle” of rock music in “Almost Famous” (2000), his fictionalized account of commerce triumphing over art. Joni Mitchell may have dreamed she saw bomber death planes turning into butterflies above our nation, but she wasn’t at Woodstock. She was holed up in a New York City hotel room, waiting to appear on “The Dick Cavett Show.”
Later, Boomers would cling to Michael Wadleigh’s hastily edited 1970 documentary of the event as evidence of their utopian aspirations, even as they slouched into the decadence of the Seventies and yuppiedom of the Eighties. The recent cancellation of a 50th anniversary concert will at least save the current generation of pseudo-religious pseudo-revolutionaries from having to live down this measure of hypocrisy.
Miley Cyrus and Kaitlynn Carter's self-described hot girl summer is continuing stateside.
On the heels of their widely discussed Italian vacation, the pop singer and star of The Hills: New Beginnings were spotted together in Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon. With Miley behind the driver's seat, the pair were photographed out and about in their native city.
This time around, Miley, 26, and Kaitlynn, 30, refrained from any PDA, which is what really got the rumor mill churning earlier this week when they were spotted making out on a yacht in Lake Como. It was ultimately revealed that the "Mother's Daughter" songstress was vacationing with Kaitlynn and her sister, Brandi Cyrus, following her split from longtime love Liam Hemsworth.
So what is there to know about the dynamic between Miley and Kaitlynn? A source recently told E! News that the pair "bonded over the fact that they're going through a similar experience," referencing Kaitlynn's split from Brody Jenner.
Another insider insisted that despite their flirty behavior, Miley and Kaitlynn are "truly having fun" and not focused on embarking on a "serious relationship."
Miley has yet to address her and Liam's separation in her own words, but the Australian actor made it clear just days ago that he harbors no ill will to his ex-wife.
"Hi all," Liam wrote on Instagram. "Just a quick note to say that Miley and I have recently separated and I wish her nothing but health and happiness going forward."
However, Miley's older sister was able to share a bit of insight into her current mindset, saying on the latest episode of her Your Favorite Thing podcast that they're spending plenty of QT together. As Brandi put it, "There's nothing I can really say. I just, I'm here for her, obviously, and I've been spending a lot of time with her. When she's ready to talk about it or whatever, then she will."
And right now it's safe to say Miley is sticking to the safety net of her inner circle.
"[Miley and Liam] have been trying to make it work for months now but haven't felt they were connecting on the level they were feeling when they got married last year," a source previously told E! News. "It's been a rough year."
Instagram / Kaitlynn Carter
Meanwhile, Kaitlynn is responding to the controversy in her own way. The Hills star liked a comment from a fan, who was defending Kaitlynn and Miley's fling. "Just wanted to let u know that u don't deserve all this hate from people who claim to be Miley's "fans"! U and Miley have every right to do what ever u want!" The fan account comments on the flirty photo, "If u make Miley happy then I like u! Miley's happiness and mental health is all that matters to me!"
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Ashley Graham celebrated her 9-year wedding anniversary with one amazing announcement: she's pregnant!
The model and husband Justin Ervin both shared the news on their respective Instagram pages on Wednesday, with photos and a video confirming the baby-to-be.
"Nine years ago today, I married the love of my life. It has been the best journey with my favorite person in the world," wrote Graham. "Today, we are feeling so blessed, grateful and excited to celebrate with our GROWING FAMILY! Happy anniversary, @mrjustinervin ❤️ Life is about to get even better."
In the accompanying video, the two are seen looking into the camera, before it pulls out to reveal her growing bump. "Surprise!" they exclaim, before they kiss.
Over on his page, Ervin shared a photo from the same location, as the two hold a copy of their sonogram.
"To my forever love and my daily inspiration. Happy anniversary @ashleygraham These 9 years have played out like a lifetime," he captioned the image. "I guess it's because my life really started once you came into it. Now that we’ve made a life together, let's make a life together. I love you and I love us. All of us..."
In the comments, Graham responded, writing, "You make me so happy. Thank you for these nine years!! I'm so excited for our next chapter together!"
This will be the first child for the couple, who tied the knot in 2010.
A$AP Rocky was found guilty by a judge in Sweden on Wednesday for his role in an assault before his appearance at a music festival.
The 30-year-old rapper, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, departed Stockholm, Sweden, earlier this month and arrived in the U.S. after being detained in the country since July 3. The Harlem native was accused of beating 19-year-old Mustafa Jafari on June 30 outside a fast-food restaurant in central Stockholm. He pleaded not guilty at the start of the three-day trial, saying that he acted in self-defense when Jafari and another man would not leave him and friends David Rispers Jr. and Bladimir Corniel alone.
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The rapper and his friends were allowed to leave Stockholm for Los Angeles on Aug. 2 and were not required to be present for the verdict.
The courts said the defendants "were not in a situation" where they were entitled to self-defense and that they "assaulted the victim by hitting and kicking him."
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As a result, the three defendants were "convicted of assault and sentenced to conditional sentences."
Testifying in court, Jafari said his memory of the events was confused because of the blows to his head he received during the brawl. He had told police earlier that he got angry as his headphones were broken during the initial argument with a bodyguard.
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A full-scale brawl ensued shortly afterward and prosecutors allege that Rocky and his bodyguards — Rispers and Corniel — beat and kicked Jafari while he was on the ground. They said Jafari was hit with a bottle.
One of the witnesses to the assault revised her story from initial police reports, testifying Friday that she didn't actually see Rocky hit Jafari with a bottle — a key focus of the trial. She and a friend, testifying anonymously at Stockholm District Court, both maintained that they did see Rocky and his partners assaulting Jafari.
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Jafari claimed the rapper pushed him to the ground. The prosecution played video footage in court showing Rocky throwing a young man to the ground, and photos showed the alleged victim's cuts, bruises and blood-stained clothes.
The case drew the attention of American celebrities and Rocky's fellow recording artists, including Sean "Diddy" Combs and Justin Bieber. A social media campaign, #JusticeForRocky, has been pressing for his release.
The issue also became a topic of a U.S.-Swedish diplomatic spat.
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President Trump intervened on behalf of the rapper while he was jailed, and called Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, offering to personally guarantee his bail, but the Swedish leader said he couldn't interfere in a legal case. Trump later cheered the release of Rocky and his bodyguards.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
